The education of girls

Detail of the Magdalen Reading. Rogier van der Weyden. By permission of
the National
Gallery, London.

Except among daughters of the nobility, and among the
Puritans, formal schooling for
girls was not encouraged. For those who were educated,
subjects focused mainly on encouraging chastity and
developing skills of housewifery.

A girl had to learn how to govern a household, and how to
conduct herself in the social class into which her marriage
would place her. (She would assume the status of her husband,
whether it was above or below her own.) By the mid sixteenth
century, some girls were permitted to attend grammar school
with their brothers, and later, thanks to those protestants
who envied the education obtained in nunneries in Europe,
private schools were established for those young ladies whose
families could afford the expense.

"Womanly accomplishments"

Young girls of the wealthy--like their
brothers--were often placed by
their families in the household of a friend or acquaintance:
there they would learn to read, write, keep accounts, manage
a household and estate, make salves and practice surgery.
(These skills are explored in the section on the
housewife.) The learning
of social skills such as singing and dancing was also
important. However, as universities would not admit women,
the future for most girls involved marriage, children, and
household duties.